...dle East. The first "canaries in the coal mine" came in the form of phone calls from the Persian Gulf monarchies to Moscow—to their "friend Vladimir"—essentially saying: save us, we're going under. The next move came when #Moscow stepped in to defuse tensions on the Azerbaijan–Iran border, which I believe stemmed from an Israeli provocation. The standoff was successfully de-escalated through a phone call between the presidents of #Iran and Azerbaijan. All of this is unfolding against the b...